ASP vs. PHP which is good website language

HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) originated as a simple word processor and found success on the web. HTML continues to evolve today and it is what nearly all

web languages today are currently based on, however, HTML has one very large down-side: it is not dynamic. HTML is known as a ‘static’ language. Because HTML is

static, database interaction, which is so heavily relied on today, is not possible using HTML.

Before going any further, you must understand that dynamic scripts and/or code actually outputs static content. Your content does not remain dynamic because it is

translated by the server and outputted to the client’s machine. You will notice this by looking at the source of a dynamic page. For instance, a dynamic index page may be

calling for the integration of several pages into the one page, which may very well be only one line of code on that page. However, it may output hundreds of lines of code

on your page, which is read as static content, or rather, content that you, the client, can see.

In order for a language to be dynamic and interact with databases (essential for e-commerce), it needs to function like a program or piece of software. At the time, in the

early 90s, it seemed logical to use a common language such as ‘C’ to code dynamic sites. Thus, CGI and Perl were born, being direct derivatives of C. CGI and Perl are

still used widely today, however the language has reached its lifespan and is on its way out the door. Although Perl is a sufficient and fast language, in order for Perl to

remain fast and efficient, it must be used on fast machines. Perl consumes mass amounts of resources including memory and processing.

In lieu of Perl’s problems, PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) was born in the late 90s. PHP hasn’t caught on until the past few years, now being ever-so-common among

discussion board systems such as Invisionboard, phpBB and vBulletin. PHP doesn’t necessarily offer a huge speed difference over Perl, which it can do at times, but

more importantly PHP offers a HUGE stress relief off of server resources.

So where does ASP fit in this picture? Let’s go back to the mid 1990s when Perl was still new in the picture. Microsoft had introduced its new Windows NT server

software and with IIS, a web server that was specifically designed for interactive websites using a code called ASP (Active Server Pages), ASP could be used and easily implemented into a dynamic environment. The main advantage with ASP was the fact that it

was actually designed to interact with the server rather than being taken from an existing programming language.

So now you have two branches, Perl/PHP and ASP. Shortly after ASP was introduced, Allaire (now owned by Macromedia) introduced the third branch: ColdFusion,

which was designed to be easier than ASP and Perl. Indeed it was, considering ColdFusion used dynamic tags in the code that functioned a lot like HTML code.

The most recent branch was introduced only several years ago by Sun. JSP (Java Server Pages) is Sun’s adaptation of its Java programming language for the web. JSP

is extremely fast because in many cases, JSP websites can be a compiled program live on the web.

You may have also heard some new buzzwords lately too; like Microsoft’s bad boy ASP.NET which is starting to catch on. ASP.NET functions a lot like JSP, allowing

for more literal online software solutions because unlike PHP and ASP, ASP.NET and JSP are not scripting languages, but actual programming languages. These ‘future’

languages are important because it shows the future of how software will more than likely be available, particularly now that more than 50% of Internet users today are

on broadband connections.

So why is all this important?
Many languages offer many different solutions. For instance, ASP is perfectly capable and does offer discussion board solutions, but the best available discussion boards

are in PHP. Although PHP e-commerce solutions are available, ASP is traditionally a stronger language in the e-commerce world while CGI and Perl make their full

transition into PHP.

This Article is written by Thomson Chemmanoor Who a freelance website designer and web promotion expert for more details about this you can visit http://webdesignerhouston.com/
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